Friday, July 27, 2012

Modern Music really does all sound the Same



The scepticism about modern music shared by many middle-aged fans has been vindicated by a study of half a century's worth of pop music, which found that today's hits really do all sound the same. Nick Collins, Science writer, DT
And nothing in 3/4... that's a waltz to anyone under twenty! I could not understand why none of my loops in Garageband were available and neither could the Apple tec. We were on it all day and eventually gave up. That night I changed from 3/4 time signature to 4/4 and bingo all the loops arrived back. Very poor selection of loops in minor keys too! Don't think today's music does minor either.

Mozart, Mahler or Beethoven  have no need to worry. They knew how to write a good tune and they are safely out of copyright which means their music will get played unlike the present lot which won't and will be consigned to oblivion. 

You can do brilliant things with Garageband. For fun I wrote out the complete orchestration of September, one of the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss. 

I hadn't realized that the 1600 bar four minute song is one of the richest orchestrations ever written. Every bar is different. My feat is more amazing as being a singer  I do not play an instrument. However I do have a bit of theory. I should have paid attention in harmony class. 

Played over good speakers the transcription was a revelation. I sang it quite well too. You never hear it like this is a concert hall or recording because it is just too difficult to play. The first bars of cascading violins must be a conductor's nightmare! How does one get them together?

For the first time I could hear the showers of rain, the bees and the cuckoo at the start but as winter approaches the huge orchestration descends to a single French Horn.

Sadly no one can hear this! Yet! The copyright on Strauss's work is so strong that it is forbidden. The price required is just too high for me. Boosey and Hawkes informed me that they considered it my arrangement although every note is as Strauss wrote it.

Under copyright law MY arrangement will be under MY copyright so I suppose if Boosey & Hawkes is correct as MY arrangement is exactly the same as Richard Strauss's I shall own the publishing rights of September for the next 70 years. What a paradox!

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